This month, we had 43 submissions, so thank you to everyone who made this possible.

More details before we get to the good stuff:

Breaking stuff down by category seems appropriate – although I’ve given people who create material from outside this blog’s boundaries precedence because this might be their only chance to be featured here.

I did not renege on the fact this is January’s content – a few submissions were automatically excluded since they were from February. I also noted there were people who were treating Showcase tweets like any other tag post and had to account for that by being careful with later submissions, but if it’s been part of the chain of tweets, the hashtag or discussion with the content owner, then it’s been counted.

Anime

Shield Hero created a maelstrom of discussion in January due to the fact it starts with two big bangs in the first episode – both of them potentially problematic – but it’s always refreshing to see well thought-out arguments and questions to ponder over from that period.

Don’t let that title fool you into thinking Gargantia is boring – Takuto makes it sound anything but! To be honest, Gargantia‘s been languishing on my plan to watch list for a while and though I don’t think I’m going to get to it any time soon, this post at least makes me want to prioritise it that bit more.

Getting spoiled on seasonal anime is an unfortunate symptom of our times, although as the comments section can attest, it also happens with other media with less notoreity for doing so (Steph’s example is Game of Thrones). Nonetheless, if you wish to enjoy anime at your own pace without spoilers and don’t know where to start, Steph has some tips for you as well.

Definitely not 100 words, but still insightful and, judging from all the pingbacks, original (as far as being “original” can go on the internet, anyway)…especially with that infographic. Personally I haven’t seen any complaints about the number of light novel adaptions going around, but if you’re curious about the breakdown of 2018 anime by source, then check it out.

Remember that kerfuffle around Lily from Zombieland Saga? If you’re not in the know, Lily was called a “trap” by sections of the anime community, leading to heated discussions about what a trap is, what Lily identifies as and so on, so forth.

It may have only been last season as I type this, but the issue is not “so last season”. By having this character type and preconceptions around it, we get nothing but arguments so we’ve got Lumi to do some mythbusting for us.

Note: I remember reading this when Ruka was the example instead of Lily (which I couldn’t understand because I’m not caught up on Steins;Gate), but as of submission time the example was Lily so I’m going with that.

As it stands, this Showcase has its origins in the anime community and doesn’t seem like it’s leaving any time soon (despite my best attempts towards the contrary, a big fraction of the submissions were anime-related), so a first impressions post was basically obligatory at this point…

I’ve picked Emiko’s post because it says a lot in so little space (one screenful of my 1366 x 768 monitor or less, to be precise). It contains a few more typoes than some of the other entries, but from a formatting perspective, it’s pretty darn fabulous, not to mention every word oozes passion.

Books

As I type this, I’ve got a post lined up in April for…well, Your Lie in April. When I read the second volume of that manga, it instantly hit favourite status! So to see Chizurue submit this poetic post laced with quotes for a book comparable to it absolutely makes my heart sing.

Games

Now here’s something interesting…Jon mentioned there had never been a post on Dungeons and Dragons submitted for the Showcase before, so let’s change that! I don’t regret the fact that my usual go-to blogger for changing up post content seems to not use the handle Google’s indexed them under, because in return I got this instead.

Now, I know next to nothing about Dungeons and Dragons, but if you’re not familiar with it, treat it like any other story and I think you’ll understand what’s going on and the author’s passion just fine.

Games and anime tend to be a frequent crossover, not to mention the Atelier games have an anime (I dropped it, but that’s beside the point), so I’m not as blind as I think I am with this post.

The moment you read the second line of the post, you realise Pete’s got a monumental job ahead of him – to summarise a series of almost-20 games in one post (!) – but he does it with aplomb, touching upon not only general logistics like the consoles, but also more emotional aspects like the core appeal of the series and even details regarding the virus one of the game discs carried.

Getting Involved with the Blogging Community

Spam’s fun if you can think of the right things to do with it – I wrote a snippet of a story inspired by mine a while back. What makes this post so fun though is the community aspect of it: Luana asked for replies to spam and turned it into a tag at the end, so if you’d like to participate, by all means do.

This one was suggested by DerekL and given the okay by Ayano herself, so here it is.

I was honestly quite overwhelmed by some of the presence of certain anime, in particular March Comes in Like a Lion season 2 – by virtue of its being a 2nd season, it automatically has the odds stacked against it. Now, if only the Crunchyroll Anime Awards were anything like the experience of this one – for instance, not having bonus categories come out of the woodwork all of a sudden – then maybe we anime fans would all get along that bit better…

It’s a Showcase with a Showcase post in it…I just couldn’t resist making such a cylical thing happen.

However, not only is it a good shout out to previous Showcase participants who aren’t aware of changes Jon intended to make (which I’ve tried to honour to the best of my ability), it just goes to show how great this project is with a little polishing from previous hosts and Raistlin.

Other

I don’t think we see any travel bloggers appear in the Showcase, so I’m including this one for how uncommon the scenario is – apparently the blogger’s kids named some robots at a foundry, which led to an adventure of its own.

Again, I’m not proficient in the topic of choice (for this case, it’s musicals) but the way Hannah describes the experience feels so authentic, it’s like I’m right there with her in 2012. Her determination, despite her at-times overwhelming anxiety and having the odds stacked against her in regards to dance experience, is admirable enough to give her a place in this post alone.

It’s not much of a secret past me embarrasses me with the things I got away with under the “MagicConan14” name in the pursuit of fanfiction, which still (somehow) gets me notifications and beta requests to this day. However, Crimson’s discussion, as she acknowledges as the end, applies to serialised fiction in general, so you might find something interesting in the discussion even if you’ve never read fanfiction.

So did you enjoy this month’s Showcase? Next month it’s mirrorpurple‘s turn, so prepare for some great content there.

Gargantia really is a neat show, so let us know if you ever get around to it. Thanks for the link and for carrying the torch of this great project. There’s an excellent list of posts here, so I may have to dig around a bit.

Wow, 43 submissions?!? I knew you got a lot but that is an impressive number! Thanks so much for hosting, I hope you had a good time with it 🙂 You certainly had work cut out for you this time!

I enjoyed reading all the submissions here (some I had read when they got submitted), so let me extend another thank you to all who submitted an article, even if it wasn’t included this time around. It was awesome to see content subjects and even types, though this time the art wasn’t included, that we have NEVER seen before. Seriously, everybody who participated here is just awesome! 🙂

That number of submissions includes the WordPress Awards as a separate entry to Derek’s and Ayano’s solo submissions, plus all ineligible submissions. I’d read a few when they first came out, which shortened the time commitment somewhat, but it was still a lot of reading…I still enjoyed it though – don’t worry about that!

The one art submission was dated Feb. 3rd, so it was a bit of a shame to discard it, really.

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